Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Today, I've got limited time so I'll share a couple of interesting links.

1. Raleigh's Mayor Charles Meeker is "quietly assembling a group of town mayors and 'high level' residents to scrutinize the student assignment plan currently being developed by the school board." The News & Observer's article is here. The situation is intriguing on a variety of levels.

A. Obviously, the fate of a city's school system has a huge impact on the city's overall economic and social well-being. Yet while our former mayor, Pat McCrory, was in office during years in which Charlotte's public schools were in intense reassignment and re-segregation turmoil, he said virtually nothing publicly. It was a certainly a smart political survival strategy for him -- CMS and race are both radioactive topics. But was it the best thing for the city?

B. Meeker's wife, Dr. Anne McLaurin, is on the school board. Yowie. Talk about power couples.

C. With Wake County schools threatened (by a controversial majority on the school board there) with the same re-segregation that has hit Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, the Raleigh political establishment seems to be fighting back more strongly than Charlotte's did a decade ago. There were some key differences -- a court case that had to be complied with. But CMS went beyond what the court rulings required in dismantling racial integration in local schools. And of course, seeing what happened here could be fueling some of the Wake opposition to re-segregation.

6
comments:

Anonymous
said...

There are a few things that all should know when considering this story. Wake County has been busing based on socio-economics for years. It has only recently been revealed that the very students the system was designed to help, minorities and high poverty kids, were in fact not being helped by this system. Instead their scores had been flat for years (unlike CMS, in which scores have been rising across the board for the past few years). For years the Wake School board had ignored this and had ignored community concerns about frequent assignment changes and long bus rides. Last fall a new majority was elected to the board (legitimately)--and they were elected on the promise to end busing. Once in office that is what they set out to do. Those in the city who wanted to continue busing sprang into action, vilifying the new board members (Meeker accused "outsiders" of electing the new board--meaning suburbanites). The NAACP jumped in, which led to disruptions and takeovers of school board meetings (including arrests). We think we have "us against them" politics here--it's nothing compared to what's going on in Wake. I think Mayor McCrory was wise to stay out of the politics. And for all the complaining about "resegregation" our high poverty kids are making academic progress, unlike in Wake County. Really, Mary, would you like us to still be busing?

From Ann Doss Helms Education blog--she's blogging from the school board work session on assignment:

"Board member asks why Myers Park, one of top-performing and most popular high schools. Planner Mike Raible cites weak performance by minority/low-income students."

In Raleigh's assignment battles there is a similar issue. Enloe High, the IB magnet, has very high scoring students who have joined in the fight against the new school board. They tout the diversity of their school and are quite proud of themselves for attending a diverse high school. However it turns out that the minority and low income kids at Enloe also are very low scoring, just like at Myers Park.

Mary, I believe that our current mayor, Anthony Foxx, has enrolled his children at Country Day. What kind of message does that give parents in this city? (especially when he talks about how we all need to pitch in to help our schools and is also worried about socio-economic diversity).

Two recent articles in the News Observer are relevant to this blog: Today's headline that support for the Mayor Meeker panel is rapidly dwindling: http://www.newsobserver.com/2010/10/01/712986/schools-panel-dwindles-but-meeker.htmlAnd yesterday's headline that under new criteria more Wake County students (especially high poverty and minority students) are taking algebra and pre-algebra classes. These new criteria were put in place by that "controversial school board"--the one that has been accused of wanting to "resegregate" Wake's schools. http://www.newsobserver.com/2010/10/01/712984/under-new-criteria-more-take-algebra.html. So is it really wise for a mayor to jump into school policy, especially when his interest appears to be primarily political and when his wife, who is a member of the school board, does not support the new majority?

About Mary and The Naked City blog

Mary Newsom is an Observer associate editor and op-ed columnist who's been covering growth, neighborhoods, urban design, sustainable development and related topics since 1995. In "The Naked City" you'll read her take on those topics and others.